Liberating the literature

It would appear that the NEJM and BMJ are both redeveloping their site.

The NEJM beta site has some innovative features including a search widget for the Yahoo toolbar (but not the industry ‘standard’ Google) and a rather nice new search feature. As TRIP has done for years it returns results using a hierarchical display. Their hierarchy is different including ‘most recent articles’, ‘most viewed articles’ and ‘reviews’.

The BMJ has a redevelopment blog. I’ve always liked the BMJ website, except when they removed free-access. It appears they are embracing web 2.0 – except for a really crucial part – today, it is about the advertiser paying, not the end user. Will this mixed approach work? I’m sure it will the new site will be a big ‘hit’. But making it free-access (albeit via a login) would allow greater access, and quite possibly even more financially viable….